


things fade, but not I with them

by Alkarinque



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, Tumblr: legendariumladiesapril, legendarium ladies april
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 05:46:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14466318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alkarinque/pseuds/Alkarinque
Summary: Women of her family had been blessed with power and miracles and fortune, but they were gone now and none was left for Elwing.





	things fade, but not I with them

**Author's Note:**

> Originally made for the prompt for April 25: the excerpt from "I - Sphinx" by P.K. Page, but it can apply to the one for April 28 about family lines too. I realised I only wrote about males, so I thought I should at least make something about a woman. Elwing first came to mind, perhaps because people judge her and her choices so much, or because I have a special love for her sons. 
> 
> Anyway, it's short compared to my other stories, but I needed it to be that way, or else I might write 5 chapters about her alone.

Stars.

Elwing remembered gazing up at them through the trees’ branches as she rode underneath them. Doriath’s trees. Home. She just had to close her eyes to smell the dark ground in the summer and hear the soft rain against leaves and see the strong and grand gate of Menegroth.

But that day it had been snow on the ground, and white clouds had come out of her mouth when she breathed. Cold had stung her face, perhaps freezing her tears, and the fur on her shoulders had felt heavy and suffocating. Around her people had rode on just as silently as she. The only sound had come from the hooves hitting the ground and the rustling of leaves.

She had held the Silmaril to her chest like a child clutching its toy. She had been a child. The jewel had lit up the trees they passed, giving them a foreign look, as if she was no longer in Doriath, but in another world. Everyone was silent, as if grief had numbed them, or perhaps it was anger.

She had looked up at the stars in the black sky, peering at them to not let the Silmaril’s light block them.

Stars and stars.

Her great-grandmother could have made things like that, Elwing had thought. Melian. Where was she now? Elwing had wondered.

Where was she as her family was slaughtered?

 

Years later, Elwing watched her boys play in the courtyard from her window. Now the smell of sea had replaced Doriath’s musky scent and she barely remembered a time when she did not wake up to the quiet sound of waves.

Her darling boys. They looked like her, like her father. Not like Nimloth, her mother. Not like her brothers.

They laughed like any children. At least, that was what Elwing thought. She had not met many, except Eärendil, but he had always been cheerful, even as a grown man. She had found it suspicious, as a child, before she discovered his fear and desperate hope that burned in his chest and eyes. And his pain which bled like a fresh wound, much like her own. After she had seen that, she relished every time he smiled and sounded happy.

One always wishes happiness to one’s family, especially if you know the pain they suffer.

Laughter turned into bickering in the yard, and Elwing sighed. Her head aches again, she thinks about the duties pressing behind her from her desk, in the form of papers and letters, and winces. Her sons – she had to have two, did she not? Eärendil had laughingly called it a blessing and curse from the Valar, but Elwing had not laughed back, wondering if those ancient beings really existed. Had Melian existed? She doubted more and more with age – were stopped by some servant, claiming they should move away to somewhere they would not disturb.

I should take them to the beach soon, Elwing thought and turned from the window. They haven’t been there in a while.

 

She felt numb as she stared out the same window moon turns later. It was raining, and the courtyard was dark and abandoned. It was a chilly night and it reminded Elwing of that journey through her sacked homeland, when she had been a girl holding a jewel.

The Silmaril was downstairs, in the dining hall. Her servant, Boreth, kept watch on it, though Elwing doubted anyone would steal it.

Except the Sons of Fëanor, she thought.

She did not know if she should be angry or sad. She was afraid and bitter and cold.

Melian gave her daughter power and magic and luck and Lúthien made happiness out of it, but none of it was left for her descendants, it seemed. Elwing; queen and mother and sister of twins and daughter of a king and exile and wife of a mariner of Gondolin and owner of a Silmaril –

She was so many things which should grant her fortune and happiness, like her father, but sons of a madman still haunted her and threatened to take it all away.

Was this how her father had felt? Her mother? Her brothers?

“I don’t want to die”, she told the tapping rain quietly, like a whisper. “I don’t want to leave.”

Stars could not be seen through the dark clouds heavy with rain. But they were there, she knew. Stars and stars; watching and seeing and not doing anything to help her.

 

Lúthien made her own happiness, Nimloth used to say. At least, that is what Galadriel had told Elwing. The queen of the exiled Sindar of Menegroth did not remember much of her mother these days. Queenship and motherhood and doom had worn it down until little was left except the wish for another day.

What will they remember of me? Elwing asked herself. My sons. My boys. What will they think of me?

Perhaps they would only remember the Silmaril and its light. Elros always loved looking at it, Elwing remembered fondly. He always understood why everyone treasured it so deeply, compared to Elrond. Elwing supposed her more thoughtful son took it for granted; did not see the end closing in.

The end. How she wished for a new beginning, with soft leaves and soft voices and a soothing hand, a mother’s hand, during childbirth and brothers and a husband not out at sea because he did not need to save them all, save their homeland, and smiling sons she could hold in her arms and friends standing by her and all that the world had denied her.

A city in flames, a ground slick with blood, regrets screaming in the air, ghosts of grand princes leading worn-down armies – it felt like it had happened before, and Elwing had felt like laughing.

When she had thrown herself down with the Silmaril – it had always followed her, always been there; a reminder of lost things but also of things gained, like Elros’ wide eyes and Elrond’s quiet questions to her and Eärendil’s brightest and blinding smile when she said yes – she thought it was an end, but she did not know the prequel. She never knew. Not the stars that now silently shone above Vingilot’s masts either.

They never cared for her, anyway.

The stars.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr, as alkarinqque, because I have bad imagination when it comes to names.
> 
> I love comments and kudos, so please leave one if you thought it was good!


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